Best Practice

We’re thrilled that you’re interested in sending in a nomination to this year’s Builders’ Merchants News Awards! It’s always great to learn about all the hard work and new initiatives that have been going on in the industry over the past year. With so many nominations being received for each category, we want to help you make sure that your entry stands out.

So, before you send us your nomination, perhaps just take a few minutes to go through this quick ‘best practice’ checklist, to be sure that you’re sending us all the information we need.

Read the Guidelines: The criteria for each category is slightly different, and the Judges use them to help make their final decision. Carefully read through the criteria for your particular category, and make sure you’ve answered all the questions relevant to you.

Check the Date: Many of the initiatives you undertake are long-term, strategic and fundamental changes to your business. As such, they can take time to implement! That’s why we are as flexible as possible with our nominations. We can accept any entry providing the initiative or change it is nominating took place sometime after 1 January, 2016.

Can You Prove It?: You may know how much your Initiative has added to your bottom line and helped boost your turnover, but have you made it clear in your nomination? Tell us about your initiative, but don’t forget to also tell us what impact it has had on the overall business, with clear before/after sales figures or percentage increases where appropriate.

Are You Eligible?: We accept entries from builders’ merchants, plumbers’ merchants, timber merchants, civils merchants, heavyside and lightside suppliers, and any other type of merchant that supplies product to the construction industry. All we ask is that you have at least one physical branch somewhere in the UK (online only businesses are not eligible), and sell predominantly to the trade.

Make it Punchy!: For ease of comparison, we ask that entries be between 500-850 words. While this is only a guideline, and we won’t disqualify entries that are more or less than this, it’s a good idea to keep as close to the word count as you can. Any less and you may not be giving us enough information to judge your entry on; too much more, and your core message may get lost.

Testimonials: If you can, support your entry with third-party testimonials. If you’re nominating for a ‘Trainee’, ‘Branch Manager’ or ‘Achiever’ category, then comments from colleagues, staff or managers are beneficial and, in fact, have in the past been fundamental in one nomination winning over another. If you’re nominating for a specific ‘initiative’ category, then comments from customers or suppliers may strengthen your nomination.

What size are you?: If you are nominating for one of our ‘Independent Builders’ Merchant’ categories, please don’t forget to specify exactly how many branches you currently have at the time of nomination.

Supporting Documentation: Where relevant, please include active links to websites, images of marketing or product displays as you feel support your entry, but please make sure these are good quality (high resolution jpeg or pdf) images. After all, you want to show your work off in its best light!